Haysha Deitsch, a prominent Chabad hasid who is the scion of a powerful wealthy Crown Heights family, allegedly violated a court order and refused to turn on the air conditioning in an assisted living facility he owns, even though the temperatures in Brooklyn reached the upper 80s.
Above: Haysha Deitsch
Chabad Assisted Living Facility Owner Allegedly Violates Court Order And Refuses To Air Condition Building In Sweltering Heat
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Haysha Deitsch, a prominent Chabad hasid who is the scion of a powerful wealthy Crown Heights family, allegedly violated a court order and refused to turn on the air conditioning in an assisted living facility he owns, even though the temperatures in Brooklyn reached the upper 80s, the New York Post reported.
Deitsch wants to sell the Prospect Park Residence to developers who want to turn it into luxury housing, and has employed unethical and likely illegal tactics to force more than 100 elderly, many of them long-term residents and frail, to move. Only seven residents remain.
Residents have suffered through lack of heat, lack of building upkeep, lack of personal care and near-constant harassment – all allegedly tactics employed by Deitsch to force them leave.
At least one resident, a retired judge, froze to death as a result.
In May, as temperatures soared into the high 80s Deitsch allegedly refused to turn the building’s air conditioning on.
Last year, residents say a Brooklyn court ordered Deitsch to keep their rooms cool. But he didn’t do it.
Deitsch – who used his time as a madrich (counselor/ spiritual guide) on a Chabad Ma’ayanot trip to Israel in the mid-1990s to canoodle with one of the female college students he was ‘guiding’ – frequently got away with bad behavior because of his family’s money and power, and the willingness of some of those family members to cover up for him.
Attorneys for the Prospect Park Residence argued in a June 8 court hearing that the facility only has to maintain a “comfortable temperature.” Once the temperature reaches 85 degrees, it can arrange for the “temporary relocation” of the residents, Deitsch’s attorneys claimed. “There is no requirement. No requirement in law for air conditioning,” lawyer Joel Drucker told the judge.
But what about last August’s court order to restore various services to residents, including air conditioning the building?
That, Drucker claimed, only applies to the hallways.
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